I used VorpalBlade.lrf from the new Baen cd. The file has about 510kb and paginates on the 700 as follows:

S - readable nicely - 682 pages
M -best for me - 965
L - 1484
XL - 2553
XXL -this one has about 20-25 words per page - 4648

I did 3 tests twice:

1: Start from a 35 book Collection load with touch, go back with prev menu button, each time waiting for the screen to stabilize and repeat. 5 double operation (touch/button) took about 15 seconds. Same if I started from the all books - about 125 - menu, but since a menu page has 10 books it should not matter

So load time including stabilization about 1.5 s

2: Font changing - note that you can jump to any font you want using touch
I started with S and went in order M, L, XL, XXL, back to S three times. It took 20 seconds total, so about 1.33 s per font change

3: Move page forward using button for 30 s. Using touch changes page at the same rate, and I kind of got the hang of it, but button is relevant here.

The first 30 seconds I went from page 77 to page 150 and the next 30 s from page 150 to page 221 all in S font. So about 72 page turns per 30s.


Better than with Dragonfly which gave me about 62 page turns/30s/LRF , but that was a bigger book or was in medium font - something here makes some difference I think.


For the Dragonfly PDF - 672 pages, 1.8 MB - I got about 46 page turns - initially I thought 23 but each pdf page goes on two 700 pages with same number, so actually there are 23x2 - 46 page turns per 30 s.

For the Dragonfly PDF - in horizontal mode, still M font, L does not reflow nicely - I got slightly lower results, about 10 PDF pages so 10x4 - 40 page turns on the 700 in 30s

I will run the sd indexing books soon.

very interesting

I loaded a 1GB SD card with the following:

280 MB worth of books with 201 books, 16 being PDF's and the rest lrf's
200 MB worth of pictures - 676 jpg's from a Nikon camera where it usually lives

It took the 700 6 minutes to index it. After that it showed me the list of books 325 total, with the sd marked as such, the internal memory ones unmarked. You could search titles or go by author/title touch letter to jump around depending how you sort your list from the option page - any sorting change is immediate, no waiting.

I loaded a lrf sd book and the first time it took 15s or so, the second time it was like an internal memory book so 1-2 s or so. Same with the pdf's sd, first longer, second same as internal memory.

Moving inside any sd book was the same as inside internal memory, or at least not noticeably slower, while for the books in internal memory there was no difference that I could notice. Search, zoom, options, all the same for sd books as for internal memory

All 676 pictures loaded nicely and you could navigate, zoom, move forward easily. The first open took a little to stabilize, 3-4s or so, though changing orientation was immediate. For b&w the image was not bad, you could see what was about, but of course it's not color.

I do not intend to use a sd card for the foreseeable future but it's good to know that indexing almost 500 MB with 800+ files - pictures+books - was not that bad at 6 minutes.

Thanks so much for this information. It looks like the 700 has exactly what I'm looking for... responsiveness! I've put mine on order and I'm just playing the waiting game now. (Actually I'm fiddling with the best way to convert EBooks for excellent viewing, which is helping me pass the time while my page turning finger twitches :D)

I loaded a 1GB SD card with the following:

280 MB worth of books with 201 books, 16 being PDF's and the rest lrf's
200 MB worth of pictures - 676 jpg's from a Nikon camera where it usually lives

It took the 700 6 minutes to index it. After that it showed me the list of books 325 total, with the sd marked as such, the internal memory ones unmarked. You could search titles or go by author/title touch letter to jump around depending how you sort your list from the option page - any sorting change is immediate, no waiting.

I loaded a lrf sd book and the first time it took 15s or so, the second time it was like an internal memory book so 1-2 s or so. Same with the pdf's sd, first longer, second same as internal memory.

Moving inside any sd book was the same as inside internal memory, or at least not noticeably slower, while for the books in internal memory there was no difference that I could notice. Search, zoom, options, all the same for sd books as for internal memory

All 676 pictures loaded nicely and you could navigate, zoom, move forward easily. The first open took a little to stabilize, 3-4s or so, though changing orientation was immediate. For b&w the image was not bad, you could see what was about, but of course it's not color.

I do not intend to use a sd card for the foreseeable future but it's good to know that indexing almost 500 MB with 800+ files - pictures+books - was not that bad at 6 minutes.

Would you be willing to load Vorpal Blade from the SD card, making sure that it hasn't been pre-processed by the Sony Library software? If it's down in the 15s range, that's about 2x-3x faster than my PRS-500 -- very good news.

I'm severely disappointed by the time required to index the SD card, though. If it's taking 6 minutes, they're either doing something very seriously wrong in their programming or there's something to the work required that is extremely non-obvious. I've indexed filesystems much bigger than that in 1% of the time on much MUCH slower hardware.

Xenophon

Would you be willing to load Vorpal Blade from the SD card, making sure that it hasn't been pre-processed by the Sony Library software? If it's down in the 15s range, that's about 2x-3x faster than my PRS-500 -- very good news.

I'm severely disappointed by the time required to index the SD card, though. If it's taking 6 minutes, they're either doing something very seriously wrong in their programming or there's something to the work required that is extremely non-obvious. I've indexed filesystems much bigger than that in 1% of the time on much MUCH slower hardware.

Xenophon

Sure I will do the test again - this time without the pictures/Nikon stuff, I will copy those folders on my PC first and back after - just the books. I will add some more pdf's including a 100 MB one just for fun, and the indexing starts from zero since I deleted the Sony folder from the card.

For lrf sd books the first open was consistent at 15 s - I tried the first 3 or 4 from the list, but I will try various sizes just to let you know since I have some big ones - a 6.7 MB lrf is the biggest actually - and also I will do Vorpal Blade

I am very happy how fast my 700 is - without sd though - and how well it deals with the pdf's I tried. I got tired of extracting text from the pdf e-arcs I've been reading for review so I requested print most of the time.

With the 700 I just dump them there, no preparation, and all until now worked nicely - some reflow super, others I need to use half page horizontal, but all are fast.

I will try several math pdf books on the sd just for fun

Without the pictures - about 550 MB worth of books, the sd card loaded in 15s. I was amazed how fast it did. I guess 676 jpg's slowed it down a lot.

Vorpal Blade sd opened in about 16 s first, and even the biggest lrf which actually is 28 MB - I thought it's a pdf - opened from the sd in about 23s. The first zoom though took slightly longer than the first open at about 25 s.

The 118 MB pdf I tried opened fast, but it's the only pdf - and I tried several in the 5-10 MB range which worked fast - I saw noticeable slowness in turn page, though it does not get stuck, just takes some time, probably about the same an usual book took for the 500, not the "instantaneous" feel I got used with the 700...

Without the pictures - about 550 MB worth of books, the sd card loaded in 15s. I was amazed how fast it did. I guess 676 jpg's slowed it down a lot.

Vorpal Blade sd opened in about 16 s first, and even the biggest lrf which actually is 28 MB - I thought it's a pdf - opened from the sd in about 23s. The first zoom though took slightly longer than the first open at about 25 s.

The 118 MB pdf I tried opened fast, but it's the only pdf - and I tried several in the 5-10 MB range which worked fast - I saw noticeable slowness in turn page, though it does not get stuck, just takes some time, probably about the same an usual book took for the 500, not the "instantaneous" feel I got used with the 700...
That's very interesting. Especially the comparison with and without the jpg files. I wonder whether the issue is the number of files (probably indicating an n**2 sort somewhere), or whether it's something to do with pre-processing jpg files during the scan.

This leads me to beg your indulgence for two questions:

How many total content files on the SD in each of those two tests?
Would you be willing to try again with the ~550MB of eBooks, plus another 676 eBooks (rather than jpg files)?

I'm very curious whether the issue is number of files or kind of files. I'd really like to be able to have 1000+ books on the device if I can, but I don't give a darn about pictures.

Thanks, (and sorry to be an inquisitive PITA)

Xenophon

That's very interesting. Especially the comparison with and without the jpg files. I wonder whether the issue is the number of files (probably indicating an n**2 sort somewhere), or whether it's something to do with pre-processing jpg files during the scan.

This leads me to beg your indulgence for two questions:

How many total content files on the SD in each of those two tests?
Would you be willing to try again with the ~550MB of eBooks, plus another 676 eBooks (rather than jpg files)?

I'm very curious whether the issue is number of files or kind of files. I'd really like to be able to have 1000+ books on the device if I can, but I don't give a darn about pictures.

Thanks, (and sorry to be an inquisitive PITA)

Xenophon

Sure - I will copy them in two folders or three to get to 1000 books. In the recent book only test there were about 200+ files since I added huge pdf's to bulk the size, but did not add many files to the original test 201 or so.

Interesting try - though my bet is the jpg's caused slowness rather than the #files, but I may be wrong :)

I put now about 1050 books in 6 identical folders - 175 book per folder, most lrf, some pdf - total about 700 MB - after deleting everything from before on the sd card.

It took 2 minutes 20 seconds this time, so a noticeable increase versus the 225 case, but much less than with the jpg's. On the second reinsert of the sd card, it took about 1 minute and 15 seconds, though this time the card had the Sony layout folder.

I flipped through the book list using touch to jump by initial of title/author, search by title/author, opened books, zoom, back menu, and all was almost as fast as on internal memory, except the first open/first zoom which took as before about 15s for a regular lrf, 22s for a huge one, with first zoom at about 25s, but next at same size (almost) instantaneous.

Props to Liviu_5 for doing more experiments!

Xenophon